I feel like I was way late on the DRRR!! train, but ultimately I felt this was a very good, very interesting anime. It really holds your attention and messes with your head. It was refreshing to see so much originality in an anime. Not to mention every character is easy to get attached to.

Mars of Destruction 2/10
Not as bad as what Tekken The Motion Pictures were, so I gave it a 2 :P
It looks very uncomfortable to take that MARS uniform on.
Pretty bad plot.
Soundeffects and voice acting is pretty bad.
I'd recommend it to everyone, just becaus it's so bad that it's funny

Comment / Review: Okay, this one has a lengthy and confusing premise. There's a battle royale to see who can obtain the Holy Grail called the Holy Grail War that happens I believe every ten years, and if you get the Grail, you earn one free wish. Fate/Zero focuses on the Fourth Holy Grail War. In each war, the Holy Grail chooses seven different people it believes have proper cause to seek the grail and its wish. These seven Masters, along with each of their Servants (who are the reincarnations of legendary heroes and villains), pit their beliefs, ideals, and desires against each other to see who can win and have their wish granted. The main dude, Kiritsugu Emiya, is a ruthlessly pragmatic killer recruited by an elite family as means to win the Holy Grail, but he obviously has is own reasons for seeking it. The show is a deconstruction of what it means to be a hero and whether or not you can call acts of war heroic, etc. Good stuff.

Writing/Characters: This show was written by Gen Urobuchi, so you should expect a whole lot of "idealism v. pragmatism" and philosophical discussions about human nature and whatnot. In other Urobuchi things that I've seen, he tends to get so caught up in conveying and exploring different themes that the characterization suffers for it, and they tend to fall flat and the story seems less personal. But Fate/Zero avoids that pitfall gloriously. Every character has his or her own hidden depths, and it's fun to think about the reasoning behind all of their actions. So instead of feeling like the show is preaching at you, you can actually relate to the lessons as the story progresses. Also, lots of people die in this show. Lots of them. But instead of seeing his characters as living plot devices for tragedy, the characters come across as human, and so every death has impact (well, most of them). One thing I can knock the show for is that I wish that they focused on Kiritsugu a bit more in the middle stages. It's hard to do that when you've got like 15 characters that matter all running around, but still. Also, Saber could have been a bit more fleshed out, as she didn't often get the chance to be much more than the ideals she represented, despite her importance.

Setting: The setting plays a big role in all of the Urobuchi animes that I've seen, and while this isn't necessarily his setting (he didn't start the franchise), he still plays around with it really well. In Psycho-Pass, Madoka Magica, and Gargantia, he likes to destroy characters' ideals with info-bombs and exposition that explain how that particular world "really works," and how things are much worse in truth than they appear to be on the surface. That's fine and all, but I'm honestly glad that he didn't do that this time around. Instead, character development is achieved by actual plot and character actions rather than resorting to what I consider to be a cop-out. Props to Urobuchi.

Art: Pretty much perfect. Any gripes I might have with it is just a matter of personal taste. The only thing I feel I can properly criticize is that there's too much computer graphics for my taste. My favorite part of the show, animation-wise, is when a certain character is lit on fire, and it's all hand-drawn. CG doesn't have the same affect on me emotionally because it seems out of place in a 2D world. However, this is actually played to a point when Berserker is always in CG because he doesn't necessarily fit in that world. So I can't knock them too much for their use of CG, especially when their budget is already so high, lol.

Music: Honestly, I didn't notice the music once in all 25 episodes, other than the OP's and ED's, which were above-average. The composer is Yuki Kajiura, who is a big deal and very popular, but I still never noticed the score one bit. It's a shame, because I'm a huge music fan, but there you have it.

Rating: 10/10

Recommended: Yes, plus you get a sequel, a movie for the sequel, and a newly airing magical girl spin-off in like 2 weeks.

Comment: A good show to watch if you've never had any desire to watch a "Magical Girl" show. The anime creators take the typical Magic Girl genre and plot points and turn them upside down and inside out. By the end of episode 3 you realize this is far from a happy fun time land of rainbows, moe, and heart shaped wands.

Pros: Most of the characters were good. Some stories were good. It was a good harem. The music and animation was good. It was funny.

Cons: The flashing words every few seconds were annoying. A little too much useless dialogue Some stories weren't good. The biggest blemish on this show for me? The FANSERVICE. The story was littered with it, which was annoying, but made for some funny situations. What really destroyed this show for me is how the director took every opportunity possible to flaunt off the females breast and ass. Every scene had a close up of someones ass or breast. The show was a harem and had enough fanservice without all that. The fact that almost every scene was over sexualized really hurt this show IMO.

Overall: 7,5/10. I would give it lower, but it did the harem genre justice (thats not saying much but still). While there was too much fanservice for my liking, the plot and characters were enough to keep me watching. Also, it gains points for that toothbrush scene.

Recommended? If you want to see a decent harem with a decent plot, and can tolerate all this fanservice, then yes. If not, there are better things to watch. Although you might want to watch it to make fun of all the people that call this a masterpiece. Sadly, you can only watch some of Bakemono on here, and none of Nekomono, but at least you can watch all of Nisemono.

Sadly, you can only watch some of Bakemono on here, and none of Nekomono, but at least you can watch all of Nisemono.

I know we didn't have the Nekomonogatari (Black), but what's missing from Bakemonogatari?

Bakemonogatari is actually 15 episodes long. But those were OVA's that didn't air on TV in Japan (if they did, they aired back to back in one day so CR didn't pick it up). The Arc is called "Tsubasa Cat." Also, Episode 12 on here cuts off at the halfway point. It did for me and all the comments say the same thing. We pretty much miss an entire Arc that adds a crapload of development to one of the main characters.

Bakemonogatari is actually 15 episodes long. But those were OVA's that didn't air on TV in Japan (if they did, they aired back to back in one day so CR didn't pick it up). The Arc is called "Tsubasa Cat." Also, Episode 12 on here cuts off at the halfway point. It did for me and all the comments say the same thing. We pretty much miss an entire Arc that adds a crapload of development to one of the main characters.

Episodes 13-15, which are parts 3-5 of Tsubasa cat. It gives you some nice character development on Hanekawa's part.

Edit: Ugh he beat me to it >_>

Thanks, I'll have to see if I missed those episodes.

Edit:

"There's an old Chinese proverb, which is:'You will know when you are ready to
watch Legends of the Galactic Heroes.'
It was said by Confucius." - Holden.

This was a trek, and since it's not something I expect many people to see I'll try and do some justice to it.

(Wreckage following a failed Imperial attack on the Iserlohn space fortress).

Legend of the Galactic Heroes is based on a novel that concludes a space war that's lasted for one and a half centuries. The major players are the Galactic Empire (an autocratic monarchy ruled by the Goldenbaum Dynasty), the Free Planets Alliance (a representative republic), the planet of Fezzan (basically Switzerland, which represents capitalistic rule) and the Terraists, a fanatical religious cult that reveres Earth as the birthplace of humanity.

The guy in charge of Fezzan is Adrian Rubinsky, a totally bald James Bond villain. But the main two characters are genius space fleet admirals: Reinhard on the side of the Galactic Empire and Yang Wenli on the side of the Free Planets Alliance (and his young prodigy Julian Mintz). In an almost documentary form the series contrasts their ideologies over five years - which means the story was unfolding practically in real time as the episodes were released.

(A strategic overlay of a fleet engagement between Imperial and Alliance forces).

In terms of Michael Bay entertainment value, this anime is pretty boring. I'd compare it to reading The Lord of the Rings, or Shakespeare (without the Old English or pretentious prose). You watch it for the enthralling space epic or for the characters themselves (and God, what a cast: Wenli, Reinhard, Kircheis, Bucock, Reuenthal, Mittermeyer, Oberstein, Attemborough, Wahlen, Fahrenheit, Kessler, Muller and Chung Wu-Cheng were just some of my favorites).

Chung Wu-Cheng must somehow be related to Sasha Braus from Attack on Titan, and Alexander Bucock is simply the grandfather of baddasses - he commanded the Free Planets Alliance fleet at both the The Third Battle of Tiamat (episodes 27-28) and The Battle of Rantemario (episode 48) and both were really awesome to watch. But my favorite character is a toss-up between two Imperial high admirals: Oskar von Reuenthal and Paul von Oberstein.

(Reuenthal exploiting an opening during The Second Battle of Rantemario).

They just had really fascinating and complex personalities which fueled many of the more incredible confrontations in throughout this mockumentary. And since almost every character is an admiral or high ranking political figure, you're seeing the story unfold at the highest possible scale. But this also brings on the "gentleman's war" philosophy where millions of soldiers might die in a single battle with very little thought given to them (which plays into a later story arc).

The strengths of Legend of the Galactic Heroes outside its characters is its themes. They explore the grotesque elements of both absolute monarchies and the debauchery potential within democracies. There are political rallies, riots, war crimes, insurrections, coup d'etats, political alliances, betrayals, conspiracies, secret police organizations, both religious and simply ideological fanatics, people who've sold their souls and others who are simply unlucky.

(Click the picture to see how that worked out for him).

And if you're up on your history you'll see all kinds of awesome things. They didn't directly parody any historical event that I noticed, but there were parallels to a billion different things from Alexander the Great to Tiananmen Square. I'm sure I only noticed a tiny sliver the historical references in this anime. The only drawback I thought was the James Bond conspiracies and "supercult" fanaticism that threatened the galaxy, but this story is from the 1980's so meh.

But yeah. There's a lot of depth, the characters are amazing, the weaker elements are there for ideological reasons to represent the destructive capacity of fanaticism in the simplest way possible, and the story never loses its pacing or gets quagmired in an irrelevant story arc. While some things are more tangential than others (such as Julian's trip to Earth), none of them miss their aim. So while this anime is "boring" in a traditional sense, I thought it was amazing.

At least amazing enough to watch all 110 episodes in 8 days (with an 8 day break in the middle to breathe). So 4 days on, 8 days off to watch some other stuff, 4 days on again, and done. Then I slept, and now I'm here. And it was fun.

Rating: 10 out of 10 (-4 if the old animation or mockumentary format annoys you; this is not a Michael Bay shounen).Recommended: Yes if you want an animated experience that's roughly akin to reading The Lord of the Rings.

Reinhard has golden Griffith hair. I just had to mention that since he reminds me of Griffith anyway (without the bad side).

PS: Something else I thought was great was how the subconscious desires of characters would influence their actions. Like a couple episodes down the road after someone made a decision, it'd dawn on you that even though they pretended otherwise even to themselves, this is exactly what they desired to happen all along. And when you have that happening to multiple people dictating their own agendas against one another, it makes for some really awesome writing.

PPS: Did I mention one of these battles involves TWO DEATH STARS shooting the CRAP OUT OF EACH OTHER? Because if I didn't mention that, I should have. It was amazing. Just... damn. Crazy amounts of overkill going on.